National Fisherman

Viewpoints

For fishing families, the dock is a third place as much as a workplace. Photo courtesy of David McLain

What we lose when the waterfront changes

Monique Coombs

The U.S. celebrates its 250th birthday this year, many of us in the fishing and ocean communities are also celebrating another important milestone: the 50th anniversary of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Photo courtesy of MFCN

Fifty years of the law that changed our fisheries

Guest Author

Pile of menhaden. Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Program

Virginia law already requires pause on Bay menhaden harvest, groups argue

Carli Clancy

Capt. Rene Hernández’s son, Rene Jr., talks fishing with four-year-old Juan Pablo Molyneaux. The Hernándezes also started at the same age, as do so many kids in the fish business, learning a way of life as much as a way to make a living. Paul Molyneaux photo.

Getting the next generation to sea

Paul Molyneaux

Commercial fishing boats docked in Seattle. Shutterstock photo.

Op-ed: A momentous US Supreme Court decision

The Maine-focused Commercial Fisheries News published its final edition in December 2025. Shutterstock photo.

Jerry_Fraser

After 53 years, Maine’s fishing voice falls silent

Jerry Fraser

Shutterstock photo.

Winter fishing, recovery, and hydration

Monique Coombs

Alexandra Morton started off presenting fisheries science aimed at protecting wild salmon. “When I saw the science wasn’t bringing change, I became an activist,” she says. Simon Fraser University photo.

Removal of BC salmon farms coincides with rebounding wild runs

Paul Molyneaux

Oregon's Newport Harbor. Creative Commons photo by D. Reinhart.

Local Ocean Seafoods: A business model for fishing communities

Paul Molyneaux

Heavy seas at the Block Island Wind Array in Rhode Island, the first offshore wind array in the United States. Department of Energy photo

The lost future of offshore wind

Guest Author

Melanie in the skiff with her mother and sister, Kathy, and Elaine in 2012. Elaine Chukan Brown photo.

The fishing work of women

Guest Author